Explorers
' |image= |series= |production= 40513-468 |producer(s)= |story= Hilary J. Bader |script= René Echevarria |director=Cliff Bole |imdbref=tt0708534 |guests=Marc Alaimo as Dukat, Bari Hochwald as Dr. Lense and Chase Masterson as Leeta |previous_production= The Die is Cast |next_production=Family Business |episode=DS9 S03E022 |airdate=8 May 1995 |previous_release=(DS9) The Die is Cast (Overall) Faces |next_release=(DS9) Family Business (Overall) Jetrel |story_date(s)=Unknown (2371) |previous_story=(DS9) The Die is Cast (Overall) Faces |next_story=(DS9) Family Business (Overall) Jetrel }} =Summary= Sisko returns from a trip to Bajor with the blueprint for an ancient space vessel that operates like a sailboat, using solar pressure for propulsion. According to legend, the Bajorans used these ships to explore their star system 800 years ago, even going as far as Cardassia. Sisko decides to build one himself to see if this was possible, and painstakingly recreates the vessel, determined to prove the design was spaceworthy. He hopes to have Jake join him on the adventure. After initially declining his father's invitation, Jake reconsiders, and the two prepare to depart the station. Before they do, Gul Dukat warns Sisko against putting so much stock in a Bajoran "fairy tale" of ancient contact. Sisko feels Dukat is only interested in disproving the notion that the Bajorans, not the Cardassians, were the first people between the two races to develop interstellar travel. The trip gets off to a smooth start, and both Sisko and Jake enjoy their time together. Jake seizes the moment to tell his father that he has been offered a writing fellowship in New Zealand, and Sisko is thrilled, yet distressed because those studies will take his son away from Deep Space Nine. But before they can discuss it, one of the ship's sails gives way, forcing them to struggle for control. Sisko jettisons the sail, concerned about continuing. Jake reminds his father that the ancient Bajorans probably ran into similar problems and didn't give up. Convinced, Sisko decides to proceed on course. Jake then reveals that he plans to delay taking the fellowship for a year because of his concerns that Sisko hasn't had someone special in his life since his wife's death. Then, without warning, their ship is caught in an eddy of light that inexplicably takes it to warp speed. After the ship is thrown free of the invisible current, Sisko discovers he has no idea where they are, and fears the eddy, composed of faster-than-light tachyons, has carried their vessel light years away. Suddenly, Gul Dukat informs the two that they have entered Cardassian space. As Sisko and Jake realize they just proved the same thing could have happened 800 years ago, Dukat reluctantly congratulates them on recreating the journey of ancient Bajoran explorers who did successfully reach Cardassia then, and welcomes the two with a stellar fireworks display. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Oversights # Oddly enough, O'Brien the "model ship builder as a child," O'Brien the 'fixer of stations," O'Brien the chief of Operations on DS9 and – evidently - the chief engineer of the Defiant, can't figure out why Sisko wants to build this ship in the first place. O'Brien suggests that Sisko simply use a computer model to prove it's spaceworthy. Well, if that's the way he feels, why doesn't he just move back to Earth with Keiko, make a computer model of DS9 and spend his days pretending to fix the station? Sisko knows that computer modelling can only go so far to determining how something will work. The only way to find out for certain is to build it. Changed Premises # Before Sisko departs in his little craft, Gul Dukat calls to warn the commander about the dangers of the trip. Specifically he says that it's a long way to the Denorios Belt. He must have forgotten that O'Brien moved the station to the mouth of the wormhole in Emissary. That episode establishes that the wormhole is in the Denorios Belt. Strangely enough, everyone in this episode seems to think it's a long way to the Denorios Belt! (There is only one explanation that I can imagine. "Emissary" establishes that the wormhole is in the "Denorios Belt," while this episode says it's a long way from the station to the "Denorios Belt." See the difference? So. .it's possible that this is't a nit. possible that the creators are just playing with our minds!) The station and the wormhole could be in different sections of the belt! Equipment Oddities # Just before telling his father that he'd like to go along with him on the solar sailing adventure, Jake receives a message from the Pennington School. He tells the computer to display it on the screen. Apparently the message is text only because Jake bends over and reads it. Text only? In this futuristic setting that uses audio/video communications almost exclusively? (Of course, this is very convenient because it means that we don't learn immediately that Jake has been accepted to Pennington!) There is a precedent – in Star Trek Generations, Picard received a text only message on the holodeck, informing him of the deaths of his brother and nephew. # I find it interesting that Sisko was going to take this trip alone, but the ship seems to require two people to deploy the sails properly. Maybe it was originally intended to be the Bajoran equivalent of boats used by single handed yacht race contestants! Continuity And Production Problems # Once Avery Brooks grows his own goatee in later episodes, the one be sports in this episode looks obviously fake. Sisko probably got a false one to see if it would suit him! Nit Central # Keith Alan Morgan on Saturday, May 08, 1999 - 8:15 am: Tachyons travel faster than light, but didn't Data say that nothing natural travels faster than light? LUIGI NOVI on Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 3:01 pm: If you're referring to his line in Tin Man (TNG), he said nothing natural travels at warp, and even Phil pointed out that the Crystalline Entity later contradicted this. The Chronicler on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 12:31 am: Perhaps in the future they have learned that tachyons are artificial (perhaps created by some ancient race that spread them throughout the universe as part of a giagantic sensor array or something. # Scotland on Tuesday, June 22, 1999 - 3:15 pm: Why does O'Brien sing such a typically English song such as Jeruselm when he is Irish? cableface on Saturday, June 26, 1999 - 5:23 am: That's a good question.He could have sung something Irish, or at least something with a better ring to it. Mark Stanley on Monday, November 22, 1999 - 4:27 am: Well, he's trying to make Bashir feel better, and Bashir's English... # constanze on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 7:54 am:''Why does Dukat (and everybody else, I presume from the reactions) assume that bajoran space travel is a myth? Was this ship built by some guy in his backyard and he left without telling anybody official? Earth space flight has left lot of records, what happened to the bajoran records? (I know: they saved everything on 5" floppys, and there was no machine left to read them in the future! :) ) 'Seniram They were probably kept hidden during the occupation.''' Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine